BEAVER FALLS, Pa. – The Geneva College women's basketball team had a hard time against the Penn State Beaver pressing defense on Saturday, yet despite 35 turnovers, the Golden Tornadoes cut the lead to one late before the Lions pulled away for an 82-68 victory.  Penn State Beaver improved to 10-1, while Geneva fell to 2-6.

Geneva jumped out to an early 13-7 lead behind five quick points from senior Callie Ford (New Middleton, Ohio/Springfield Local).  That's when the turnovers started for Geneva, and Penn State Beaver began to take advantage, using five Golden Tornado turnovers over the next three minutes to score 11 straight points to take an 18-13 lead on its way to a 23-17 lead at the end of the quarter.

Down 26-20 early in the second quarter, Geneva put together its best stretch of the afternoon, scoring 11 straight of its own to take back the lead, 31-26.  From there it was a back-and-forth affair for the remainder of the half as the Golden Tornadoes took a narrow 38-37 lead at halftime.  Ford had 10 points at the break, while sophomore Emily Melnek (Poland, Ohio/Poland) added eight.

Penn State Beaver came out of the break energized, and the Lions dominated Geneva early in the second half, going on a 19-4 run to take their biggest lead of the game, 56-42, with four minutes remaining in the third quarter.

At that point Geneva began to mount a comeback, scoring the last four points of the quarter, and when sophomore Kaitlyn Totani (Milton, Ohio/Jackson-Milton) hit a 3-pointer with 6:43 remaining in the game, Geneva had closed to within one, 58-57, and appeared to have momentum.  Unfortunately, Penn State Beaver took over from there, finishing the game on a 24-11 run to win going away, 82-68.

"We've got to do a better job taking care of the ball," said Head Coach Lori Wynn.  "They had good pressure, but too many of our turnovers were just careless decisions.  It says something for the team that we were still in it late, but when you turn the ball over that many times, it's just too hard to beat anyone.  I felt like once we got into our offensive sets we did some good things offensively, especially our work on the glass, but we just gave them too many easy buckets off our turnovers."

Ford led the team with 23 points and 10 rebounds, while Melnek scored 10 points and grabbed eight rebounds.  Geneva outrebounded Penn State Beaver 52-37, including 20 offensive rebounds.  Geneva shot just 35% for the game, while the Lions finished at 44%.  Emily Keener scored a game-high 27 points for Penn State Beaver.

Geneva has one more game before break when it hosts Wooster on Monday at 5:00 p.m.


Geneva College is a Christ-centered academic community that provides a comprehensive education to equip students for faithful and fruitful service to God and neighbor. Offering over 80 traditional undergraduate majors and programs, fully online Adult Degree Programs, and high-demand graduate degrees, Geneva's programs are recognized for their high quality. U.S. News & World Report ranks Geneva as a Top Three Best Value Regional University with one of the Top 100 engineering programs in the nation. Adhering to the truth of Scripture, a Geneva education is grounded in God's Word as well as in a core curriculum designed to prepare students vocationally to think, write and communicate well in today's world.